I’ve written in the past about Max Goodstein and his wife Anna Leibowitz Goodstein. Max was the uncle of the gardener’s grandmother Celia. When she immigrated to the United States from Russia, she was sponsored and taken in by Max and Anna and their children, Celia’s cousins.
The couple is buried at the same cemetery as Celia and Isidore Scheshko, Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens County, New York. Actually, the aunt and uncle were buried there in the 1930s (1934 for Max, 1939 for Anna). Isidore died in 1953, and Celia not until 1982.
Here are Max and Anna’s headstones.
These images were taken by the cemetery and given to me as pdf files. I had to create jpg files, and the ages are not clear. It’s possible that Max’s stone says he was 62 years old, but if he was born in 1874, as his naturalization papers would indicate, he would have been 60 when he passed.
Thanks to Tracing the Tribe on Facebook, here is the translation from Hebrew: Here is buried Mordechai, son of Mr. Aharon, died 8th of Elul 5694. May his soul be bound in eternal life.
This confirms once again that Celia’s grandfather was Aaron Goodstein.
Anna’s headstone says this: Neche, daughter of Mr. Shlomo, died 11th of Adar 5699. May her soul be bound in eternal life.
If Anna was born in 1876, as I believe, she would have been about 63 years old when she passed. Her headstone seems to say 55 or 65, but it’s very unclear.
These are very beautiful headstones. I believe the picture of Max on the headstone is from the family photo that includes Celia which I have shared before or taken around the same time.
I did learn one new thing from the headstones. Anna’s father is listed as Shlomo, but I thought her father’s name was Aaron. Maybe that was an error because of Max’s father, but I am not sure. This will take some more investigation!
I’ve taken over the memorials on Find-a-grave for both Max and Anna. If one of their descendants is on Find-a-grave and would like me to transfer them, I would be happy to do so. In the meantime, the gardener and I will watch over their memorials as their closest Find-a-grave relatives.
Entering the Pale 
I always love the old time gravestones with the picture. Sadly my family didn’t do that. I was lucky to find a picture of my maternal grandfather (RIP 1918). It’s from a cousin and it’s from his grandmother’s wedding. It’s the only picture I have of him. I was astounded at how much he looked like my uncle (his oldest son).
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I’m so glad for you to get that photo. What a treasure, Kate. My own family didn’t do the pictures. I think it’s unusual. Probably very expensive.
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I have one portrait of my father’s family when he was about 7. It’s the only picture I have of my paternal grandmother who died before I was born. It’s a treasure. They had it taken to send back to the “old country.”
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So glad they bothered to have it taken then!
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It was taken to send back to their parents in Austria. Amazingly, I did not get it locally. Someone in Austria was cleaning out a house (that my great grandparents lived in a long time ago) and posted portraits that he found in the attic on the Facebook page of a group that researches an area in Austria. This was one of them. I was lucky to be connected to this group and lucky I saw the post. He had at least 20 portraits of weddings and families that had been sent to Austria from families that had emigrated to the US. I’m sure there was a copy in the family but I have no idea who has it or if it survived the many purges of “cleaning out the attic.”
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Beautiful stones Luanne. It’s a shame they didn’t get a clearer picture of Max for you. Could be both names Shlomo but he was known as Aaron. Great headway too 🙂
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Thanks, Sharon. I suppose could be both names but they are both Hebrew and so different from each other. Seems odd to me.
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So interesting, Luanne. Some of my grandmother’s family lived in New York. It would be funny if they were in the same cemetery. I think Anna’s headstone is particularly beautiful. Eternal flames at the top?
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That would be such a coincidence! I agree about Anna’s headstone. Very beautiful. These are nicer headstones than I am generally used to.
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Wonderful post, Luanne. I’m always so interested in your cemetery stories. The headstones can be so frustrating when you can’t read the exact dates but worth the effort always.
We have a friend who lives here now but is a native New Yorker – her grandmother was a Russian immigrant, too. Interesting stories!
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Oh I bet those are great stories! The caretaker took those photos for me but he sent them in huge pdf files that were already condensed. So i have no way to convert to real photos. I had to make screen shots. I wish he had sent me photos!!!
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Those are beautiful headstones. I like when they put a photograph on them.
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Thanks, Eilene. I have seen this so seldom and really know nothing about the process or what’s entailed.
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Seems I’ve seen it more often in European cemeteries than in the U.S.
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It’s really unusual for Jewish gravestones to have photos like that on them (although I’ve seen some recent ones from former Soviet Jews that do). I wonder when that was put on the stone since it seems newer than the stone itself (the white border looks too clean to have been there for almost 90 years).
As for the age discrepancies—if these were immigrants, they probably never knew their birthdays so ages were somewhat elusive. My great-grandfather’s age varies by as much as 15 years based on the record, including his gravestone.
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It’s very unusual for any headstones to have images in them IMO. I know nothing about it and really wonder how it is done. I suppose I should research it. I agree about the white border, but what material is it?
Fifteen years?! So frustrating. That’s when you start to wonder if it’s the same generation or a different person!!!
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